Professor, Harris School, University of Chicago

Ariel Kalil is a developmental psychologist who studies how economic conditions affect child and family functioning. Her projects have examined how transitions from welfare to work affect mothers and children, barriers to the employment of welfare recipients, as well as family processes and child development in female-headed, teenage-parent, and cohabiting-couple households. With funding from a William T. Grant Faculty Scholars Award, she is currently conducting a multi-method study of the effects of parental job loss on child development. A second major project, funded by the Foundation for Child Development’s Changing Faces of America’s Children Young Scholars Program, focuses on how parental labor market experiences and welfare program participation affect children’s development in immigrant families. Finally, she is studying how job insecurity and job displacement affect mental and physical health and stress among older workers. Kalil is the director of the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy. She received her PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan in 1996.

Recent publications include:

• Johnson, R.C., Kalil, A., & Dunifon, R. (2011).  Employment patterns of less-skilled workers: Links to children’s behavior and academic progress.  Forthcoming, Demography.
• Morrissey, T., Dunifon, R., & Kalil, A. (2011).  Maternal employment, work schedules, and children’s body mass index.  Child Development, 82, 66-81.
• Kalil, A. & Wightman, P. (2011).  Parental job loss and children’s educational attainment in Black and White middle class families.  Social Science Quarterly, 92, 56-77. 
• Kalil, A., Ziol-Guest, K., & Levin-Epstein, J. (2010).  Non-standard work and marital instability: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 1289-1300.